Inextricably Linked..

Dwell Illustrations

I have these 4 illustrations in the new April issue of Dwell Magazine, which should be out on newsstands in a few days. The article deals with the history and future of manufacturing. The art director let me get a little more experimental with these concepts, perhaps to help liven up the subject matter a bit. The added leeway made these illustrations a lot of fun to work on. (Thanks Brendan!)

"Adrift"

Patagonia T-shirt design

I did 2 t-shirt graphics for Patagonia in January of 2009, followed by 3 more over this past summer. It takes quite a while for the shirts to finally make it out for sale, and this 1st one is finally available as of today. It's been dubbed "Platform" for the oil platform I depicted in the middle of a very hostile sea. In the words of Patagonia:

"Mother Nature always wins in the end - we hope. Imagine the problems of oil dependency and global warming being swept away - for good. Featuring original artwork by Tim Tomkinson, the Platform T-Shirt carries an inside message about The Southern Environmental Law Center (SouthernEnvironment.org), a group leveraging the tools of environmental law and policy to promote energy efficiency and renewable resources that will lead us to a new, cleaner future. The shirt is recyclable through the Common Threads Recycling Program. "

I'll post the other t-shirt graphics as they become available. Click here to purchase this one, and to see some of the other great t-shirts they have available. They've been having some cool designs coming in from The Heads of State, Geoff McFetridge, and even Shepard Fairey.

Lunar Holiday Poster

Yesterday I finished this holiday poster for Lunar, a product design company based out of San Francisco. They approached me with the general idea of wanting to collaborate on their company holiday card, with the hope that it could become a fold-out poster incorporating lots of different types of imagery. They sent out a questionnaire to their employees in San Francisco, as well as to their offices in Munich and Hong Kong, asking them to name some of their favorite things. The point of this was to gain a bit of a cross-section of the "Lunar culture" as experienced by their employees around the globe. Here's a few sample questions they sent out:

- All time favorite holiday food?
- Favorite corner in the city?
- Favorite LUNAR project of the year?
- Favorite gift to give?
- Favorite festival of the year in SF/Munich/HK?
- What’s your favorite SF/Munich/HK institution?
- Favorite after work/weekend past time?

So I had to take all of the different answers and figure out some way to represent them into a holiday poster context. Here are my first 3 sketches:




They liked the 2nd sketch, but wanted way more stuff going on and more imagery from the answers incorporated into it. They found an image of a vintage Candyland boardgame, which they loved as an idea for more of a path or a map. They felt that referencing this could communicate something like, “LUNAR is a unique place during the holidays". And they loved the way the illustrations tend to combine things in strange ways, much like mine tend to do. So I did some revisions and we came to a final approved sketch..





The final poster will be printed at about 12" x 18". Here are a few close-up sections:

Happy Halloween!

I think I've seen this skinny dude walking around Brooklyn..

Arrive Magazine Illustrations

Last week I worked on these 3 illustrations for Amtrak's Arrive Magazine. The article's headline is "You can go your own way", and the subhead reads "The entrepreneurial spirit is alive and well in these hard economic times." For the opener illustration, I wanted to come up with a metaphor that tied in with this. I thought that the visual pun of swerving headlights could suggest that entrepreneurs are thinking ahead and avoiding disasters when they seem imminent. The 1st spot illustration (with the butterflies) will be in a section that discusses how to get the word out about your (the entrepreneur's) product or service. And the 2nd spot (with the horse) will accompany one of the sidebar sections – "Are you running away from something or running toward something?" If you ride on Amtrak's Acela line in December/January, be sure to flip through the mag to check these out!

I included my sketches below. For the opener, I was actually kind of hoping they'd pick the sketch of the guy on the stilts avoiding the bear traps.. but it in the end I think the one they picked works better. That 3rd one shows a beaver making a dam out of all the "For Sale" signs out there (doing something constructive in a bad situation). As for that 3rd spot sketch, it would have been for the sidebar section titled "Can you sell your vision?" I think I was channeling Magritte a bit on that one..

Germs

Germs are creepy, and so is this drawing...

"Infinite"

I had some free time to doodle today, and I was in a type-drawing mood. So I checked out the Illustration Friday topic, which was "Infinite". Not surprisingly, the first thing that popped into my head was the infinity symbol. Perhaps it's cliched, but whatever.. I thought it would be fun to make an ornate infinity symbol wrapping around the word. I've also been in a red & black mood lately in my sketchbook, so that's what I went with..

UPDATE (9/26): Thank you, IF, for making my piece "Pick of the Week"!

"Now Playing" show at Gallery 1988 SF

I just finished this piece yesterday for a show at Gallery 1988 in San Francisco called "Now Playing". It's a group show where each artist was sent an original movie poster to customize with their own artwork, in whatever way we wanted. We didn't get to pick what poster we'd get, so it was a surprise when the poster tubes were shipped out. I was psyched to get the Terminator 2 poster.. it was one of my favorite movies when I was a kid. I recall trying to emulate Eddie Furlong for a couple of months, at least, after seeing it. I even rocked the same haircut..

After playing around with some other more serious ideas I decided to go with something a little more wacky. I wanted to change "Judgment Day" into something totally different.. like a holiday, for instance. Valentines Day seemed like the funniest choice to me, given the Terminator character and his cold, robotic personality. Plus I had the perfect opportunity to make his hand holding something other than a shotgun.

All of the artwork and type changes were collaged directly on top of the poster. I used a bunch of different types of papers and pages out of books for the background, to give the whole thing a warmer, more stylized feel. Then I drew, painted and collaged more stuff on top of that, including all the flowers and leaves.

The show opens this Friday, September 18th at Gallery 1988 San Francisco: 1173 Sutter St. / Polk St.

New Death & Co. Menu

My wife and I updated the Death & Co. menu about a week ago. I made 8 new illustrations and created the category titles, inspired by old Stock Certificate lettering. The general design is mostly similar to before, but Kate had to change out all of the food and drink items with new stuff, rearrange some sections, and add in more quotes. It's head bartender Brian Miller's first menu, and I can't wait to try out some of their new concoctions. They have a new chef now, too, so the small-plates are all new... and sound rather tasty.

"The {Sketch}book" vol. 01!!

"The {Sketch}book" is the first volume of a new series of books showcasing all of my favorite sketchbook pages. This first volume is a rather large compilation of 114 pages from multiple sketchbooks I've kept over the past nine years. I included the cover and 7 interior spreads, above, as examples.

I spent the last 2 months compiling images and designing the book in my free time, and am really happy with the results. Originally, I started creating the book as an addition to my larger portfolio of commissioned jobs and gallery work that gets shown around by my agents. But I realized that I could offer it up for sale, as well, to whomever would be interested.

For more info on purchasing a copy please click here: http://www.blurb.com/bookstore/detail/626123

If interested, I highly recommend getting the hardcover version, but there is also a cheaper softcover version available. Both options are 8" x 10", 114 pages, on Premium Paper. Keep in mind that these books will likely be a pretty limited run as they were not mass-produced for book stores. Each book ordered is professionally printed and bound on-demand, and shipped within about 8 days. Please email with any other questions: timtomkinson@mac.com

"Idiot Box" - Opening April 2nd!

The group show "Idiot Box" opens at 7pm tonight, April 2nd, at Gallery 1988 in LA. It's the gallery's 5-year anniversary, and they're celebrating with a show devoted to "guilty pleasure television." They even got Mr. Belding from Saved By the Bell to be the host of the show!

I contributed these two pieces, nodding to several of my favorite shows from the past. The top one is a piece based on the shows Alf and The X-Files, titled "The Alf-Files". It's a play on the concept of Mulder's and Scully's relentless search for aliens, and finding a rather silly one in the form of Alf. The second one is titled "Miscellaneous TV Outerwear" and is pretty self-explanatory, unless you've been living as a Neo-Luddite for the past several decades.

I picked these frames for their gaudy, kitschy flavor, to reflect the feeling of most of these TV shows. There should be a great mix of killer work, given the lineup of artists and the subject matter, so be sure to check it out if you're in the LA area. Here's the gallery website for more info: http://www.nineteeneightyeight.com

Lurzer's Archive ads

I worked on these two promotional ads for Lurzer's Archive. The top one was made just a couple weeks ago, to be published in the near future.. and the bottom was in the vol. 4, 2008 issue.

The top ad was designed by Coco Connolly using some of the new branding for my agent, Friend & Johnson. The photo on the left was taken by Charles Shotwell, and I decided to make my page into a play off of his photo. I had free reign to do whatever I wanted, but thought it would be sort of funny to somehow use the missing chair from his photo. For some reason the first thing that popped into my head was a guy balancing a chair on his nose. So I went with that idea, and also pushed it to the more ridiculous side with the juggling of live grenades and the unicycle riding (which i've always wanted to try).

I designed the bottom ad myself, since I had the entire spread. And since I was extremely busy at the time, I used existing images: the left side being from a sketchbook, and the right side from a series of spots for Skiing Magazine.

IBM ad - "Connections"

Here's the first of 3 ads I did for IBM. I was asked to keep the people pretty graphic, so they're a bit different than the usual type of people I draw.. which ended up being sort of a fun challenge. I also needed to keep the color pretty graphic and limited, so I employed the same blotchy, loose look that I've been getting into lately (see the elephant down below)

The ads showed up mostly in magazines and newspapers in Europe. You can see some of the work done by other artists as part of the same campaign here. Click to the left or right to scroll through the gallery. I'm not sure what everything says, since it's in French.. but it's probably only interesting if you're an IT guy anyways. I'll post the other two ads I've been working on in the near future.